Snapchat soars in India after TikTok ban as Snap stock soars at home
India is now Snapchat’s top market for downloads, supplying 32%—nearly a third—of the app’s total downloads per month, according to data from Apptopia. For context, Snapchat’s second biggest market for downloads is the United States, with 18% of the app’s total downloads, and its third biggest market is Mexico with 3.6%.
Those numbers represent the tail end of a meteoric rise for Snapchat in India, after the Indian government banned the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok in June. The ban also included nearly 60 other Chinese mobile apps, and was seen as retaliation after a bloody clash between the world’s two most populous countries—China and India—over a long-disputed border left several Indian soldiers dead.
Before the ban, India made up around 15% of Snapchat’s downloads, but between May and October, that share has doubled. And the shift has been a tremendous boost for Snapchat, which had its largest single day of downloads in the last year and a half on November 3, with 992,000 downloads. Just a few days before that, on October 28, it logged a record number of single-day downloads in India, with 433,000 downloads. Globally, Snapchat’s daily downloads have grown from about 750,000 on September 1 to one million on November 1.
Snap is cruising now, and it’s showing no signs of slowing. Since the company’s third-quarter earnings report last month, its stock has been trading at record highs, up 47% from October 20.
According to the company, its latest quarter boasted its highest member growth since 2017.
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